Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Background
Mauthausen is a city a couple hours outside of Vienna. It is the site of one of the Nazi’s several concentration camps across central and eastern Europe. The building started in 1938 and lasted until 1941. Initially, local carpenters built the first structures on Mauthausen, two barracks and a barbed wire fence. From then on out, the construction of the camp was done by the prisoners. Its operation lasted from 1938 until 1945, when the camp was liberated. Mauthausen had a death rate of about 50%. Estimates say around 300,000 people worked at there and around 150,000 died there. Either they were murdered, starved to death, or worked to death. The history of Mauthausen can be divided into 4 periods. The first period, 1938-1941, was the building of the camp. The second period started in 1941-1942, was quarry work done by the prisoners. The third period started in 1943, was work in factories for weapons and ammunition. The fourth period started in 1944 when the Nazis decided to close all death camps and the prisoners from the death camps were transported to Mauthausen and other concentration camps across Europe.
The point of the concentration camps was to kill people by hard labor. Once prisoners entered the camp they were told by the guards that the gate they entered from was the way in and the chimney of the crematorium was their way out. In early years the biggest group of prisoners were the political prisoners; however, the demographics were varied and included: gypsies, criminals, homosexuals, Jews, and Soviet POWs. Originally, Mauthausen was opened for men; however, with the closing of the extermination camps in eastern Europe, women started to flood in.
Arrival at Mauthausen
First the prisoners arrived in the railway station for Mauthausen. The carts that they rode in were usually used for cattle transport. After arrival, the prisoners would have to march up the hill for about 6 kilometers to reach the camp. They would be asked to line up facing the “wailing wall” and would be asked to stand there for hours or days. Often the SS would beat them or release the dogs on the prisoners. Sometimes during the cold winter months they would spray cold water onto the prisoners. The SS had one goal and that was to make the prisoners’ lives hell by breaking them in a mental way. After the wailing wall, the prisoners would be taken to the shower. Before showering they would be shaven with blunt razor blades that would leave open sores and the prisoners would be bleeding during their shower. Then the prisoners would line up at roll call, get their uniforms, and move into quarantine. In quarantine, the prisoners would be split up into different labor tasks. The strong would be asked to work in the quarries. After the quarantine, the prisoners would be moved into their barracks.
Life at Mauthausen
A typical day at Mauthausen started at 445 AM in the summer and 515AM in the winter. The prisoners would have 30 minutes to wake up, make their bed, wash themselves, dress, and live up for roll call. Breakfast and dinner were eaten at roll call and would consist of around 600-1000 calories and lunch was eaten at the job site, most likely at the quarry. The prisoners would work 11-12 hrs a day and 6 days a week. On Sunday, their “day off” they were required to gymnastics. The SS would give them very difficult physical challenges in order to separate the strong from the weak. Many times the prisoners would die during their gymnastics training. There were three official punishments at Mauthausen. There was the bunker or the camp prison, where misbehaving prisoners were sent to be tortured. The second form of punishment was standing on the roll call ground for extended periods of time often being beaten, mauled by dogs, or sprayed with cold water. The last official punishment was being beat by a whip or wooden stick 25 times. The prisoner would have to count each whipping until 25. If they counted incorrectly, the beatings would start from zero. Many times the prisoners were whipped so hard their kidneys would start to bleed.
Gas Chambers
Executions of most prisoners at Mauthausen were done through the gas chamber. The gas used to kill the prisoners was Cyclone B. This gas removes the oxygen from blood and takes about 20-30 minutes to kill the prisoners. The gas chamber would require 4-5 hours to clean after each round of gassing. Around 100 prisoners could be crammed into the gas chamber at once to be gassed. The prisoners were always lied to and were told that they were going to take a shower. The gas chamber at Mauthausen was done being built in 1942 and was used from then until the camp’s liberation in 1945. In this time, 5,000 prisoners died because of the gas chamber. Before the prisoners were sent into the chamber, the ones with gold teeth were marked so that they could be easily identified once they died. The SS would then pick out the marked prisoners and remove their gold teeth from their mouths. They obtained about 50 pounds of gold teeth.